EDITORIAL BOARD
Mr. Dana Wilde - Faculty Advisor
John Jamieson - Editor~in-Chief
Joanna Greenwood ·
Tom Phillips ·
Gina Sawyer
Kristi DeRoche
The Editorial board would like to voice its
sincere appreciation for the direction, and
logistical support of Dana Wilde, to the staff
of the Library and L.R.C. for their generousity,
· pat{ence, and technical assistance, as well as
to all the authors and artists who found time in
their socio-academic regimin to ventilate their
creativity through this issue; finally, we would
like to thank The Print Shop, Old Town, Maine,
and the funds provided by Unity College for .
making this publication possible.
@ 1990 The students of Unity College, Unity
Maine. Published: Dec. 1990 by The Print Shop;
350 copies.
North Winds
"Fall '90"
CONTENTS
Untitled #1-=-Joanna Greenwood. • ••.•• 6
After The Storm-=-Lori Chapdelaine ......• 7
Leave me 0 lust-=-Tom Just. • • . • . • 8
The Feeling of Wilderness-=-Robert M. Seely •• 10
Young Warrior-=-James Watkins. • • • • • • 12
Elements of A Time Gone By-=-David Smith .•• 14
Headlights and Rain-=-Dawn Dixon ......• 20
End of The Path-=-J. Jamieson. • • • 21
Woman With A Heavy Heart-=-Amy Eads. • . • . 24
Fog-=-Tom Phillips .•••••.••.•••• 25
Mirage-=-David Smith .••••..••••.• 26
Love From Above-=-Linda Adams. • . . . • ... 28
Cafe Absurdite-=-J. Jamieson. • 29
Fall In Mass.-=-Tom phillips •....•..• 33
Gramps-=-Jef f Duguay. • • • • • • • . • .' • . 35
While Walking in A Graveyard-=-Tom Phillips .. 36
Various Haiku-=-Lars knakkergaard ......• 37
Cold-=-David B. Thurston .••.....••. 38
What Use Are My Understandings-=-J. Jamieson. 39
To Night-=-Joanna Greenwood •.•.....•• 41
Drawings
"Duck Landing"-=-Kim Kuntz .•.• 19
"Dangerous Momentum"-=-Anna Hagigeorgiou •.. 9
"Turkish Portrait"-=-Tess Fairbanks ... 34
"The Mighty Pen"-=-Thurston Graham ..••. Cover
3
Editor's Note
There are few things these days that have
sufficient integrity to survive in a popular
light without something shining alongside them,
an accompanying gimmick forged, perhaps, in neon
to act as a magnet for our attention and, as
they would have it, our affection. Oftentimes
the thing in its true and examined form seems
less than it did "as advertised". In lieu of
the frequency of this occurence we grow to
accept this, train our expectations to avoid
being repeatedly "had", and soon after, we erect
a shield of desensitization; an armor that only
more massive lettering, other invented electric
hues, and greater and greater volumes can
penetrate.
Voices that blare, "Mmmmmm--wow!", and, "But
wait .. . before you act! ... ", invade us
over every channel and fashion of media;
even our mail boxes, the things that we as
children were taught were sacred and somehow
transcended vandalism, are now crammed with
colorful and apparently exciting packets sent
personally to us, the residents.
In Chicago, a hot-dog stand anchors a sign
from the force responsible for the euphimism of
the city which reads: "Chicago's Most Fabulous
Hot Dogs", the narrator to the latest movie
preview--of which they've just shown us the
introduction, climax, and resolution--finishes
in a zealous and reverberating imperative: "See
it Now!" From wieners to theater, few things
are regarded with enough faith to merely stand
alone and ungarnished with hype.
Sunsets and rocky crags along isolated
shores, however, have the power to move an
onlooker with a conviction no Cadillac salesman,
even in a Santa-suit, could ever match; I doubt
if there's anyone who's ever climbed a hill in
search of an unshrouded sunset, who's felt that
the scramble was not worth the spectacle, or the
rare sensation of natural perfection it excites
in us. In this sense, poetry--art in
general--is the same way.
The stories and poems of this semester's
magazine, whether edified on foundations of
stanzas or free verse, stand fast, and mine our
passions to surprising depths and bring
tremendous yields. The following is quite naked
by today's standards. All of its glory, jazz
and flash exists on the inside nearer to one's
heart and mind, perforates our desensitized
mantles with an array of aural-dynamic, honed
and adgile words, eventually nesting noticeably
in our cores.
John Jamieson
5
Untitled I
Though the ground has turned to ice
And the wind has grown cold, my heart
Remains warm and
Kindly inside of me;
My thoughts are cleansed and
Purified as I stroll through the
Beckoning wood.
The trees are illuminated by the powder
Upon which the sun radiates
Its glowing beams.
Limbs break and fall from the heavy
Burden laid on them,
Streams suffocate to move
Along the icy flow;
But I am here inside this beautiful
World of white,
Every day it beckons me to come forth
And I do.
JoAnna Greenwood
6
The Feeling Of Wilderness
The sound or lack thereof
Filled the space of a couple hundred feet above
As I walked in awe of nature's glorious feats.
A canyon filled with nothing;
Loose pumice rock walls
Where ash and dust fall.
A feeling off the road I seek,
A feeling off the road I seek.
Down I walk upon a waterfall,
Dry as a bone.
Deeper into the recesses
And the caves of the unknown.
Water here, water there, trickling under our feet
Playing hide and seek,
Till its confluence with the rushing creek.
A feeling off the road I seek,
A feeling off the road I seek.
The water here is very bold
Cutting canyons many years and centuries old,
Forming boundaries that we were told were limitless
Being watched by an audience of trees and flowers,
Grasses and the pinnacles that tower,
Pumice and rock and even a Red-tailed hawk
On a flight in the canyon he commands.
A stream of water running smooth and sleek
Through obstacles nature demands.
Sticks and stumps and logs and things
That winter often brings,
Forming torrents and clashes and shallow splashes
Where frolicking animals play.
10
A feeling off the roa~ I seek,
A feeling off the road I seek.
Scaling its walls,
And playing in its halls
That erosion forms on its way to the ocean;
An exit we found,
Way up on high ground.
Know one knows why but off we went
Out of this canyon, a good day spent
Upon this creek of majesty.
While climbing uo the canyon wall,
I suddenly had a wondrous thought,
It was a feeling off the road I sought,
It was a feeling that I found a lot.
Robert M. Seely
11
Young Warrior
You're nineteen and never scored
Now they're gonna send you off to war
Give you a gun
Teach you to kill
Come on boy it's a lot of fun
Just turn off your emotions and point
Your gun
Murder is legal
Murder is right
When it's a war everything is alright
Kill boy kill
Do what you're told
Kill boy Kill
Don't forget to reload
Who is the enemy
What is his name
Don't you know he's just another player
In the game
Shoot him dead
Shoot him down
Listen for his guttural sound
In nineteen years with
Flame-of-experience barely lit
How can they expect you to handle it
You'll never be free from the things
You've seen
Kill boy kill
What you waitin' for
Kill boy kill
Don't you love war
12
The pain and screams of your dying
Friends
Their blood and guts stain the land
What does it matter
You've made it through
As quickly as they've snatched you
They've dispatched you
Thrown you to the lions
Who don't understand
James Watkins
13
Elements of a Time Gone By
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in," a robust voice calls out.
"Ahh, yes ••. Oh thank you very much
for letting me in," Harvey says to the
caretaker of the house.
"Oohh, t'was not a problem at all. I
just be doin' me job. If ye be needin' me,
just press the buzzer, and I'll come around."
Harvey is left with his Uncle Prescot, who is
engrossed in a chess game he is playing
against himself. Relics, trophies, pictures,
and war paraphernalia line the walls of the
room.
"Sir Walter Prescot the III, I presume?"
jests Harvey.
"Indeed, but just call me Montigue," he
replies. "But please, I am in the middle of
an intense chess game."
"But uncle, none of the pieces have been
moved."
"Shh!" He brings his finger in front of
his mouth. A flushed look of anger rushes
across his face, enhancing the brown
mustache. "Boy, the greatest chess players
of the world take hours if not days to decide
their moves, because the first strike, I mean
move, is the most critical. The outcome of
the campaign, no ... game, depends upon the
split second decision making ability of the,
ahh ... player. So you should never leap
to conclusions before the facts are known!"
"Uncle Montigue ... you don't even know
how to play chess."
"That's beside the point, boy. You
should never let your enemy think you can't
do something. Keep'em in the dark as some
might say. A Mr. Thomas Hardy once said that
'Each man is only at his post when under
fire.' Look here, boy, at this board, notice
every figure is at its station. Therefore,
lL}
this is the most important part of the game.
I remember a time--"
"Uncle, I am so sorry to interrupt you,
but I came to ask you for advice. My wife,
she's been picking at me constantly,
especially about money. Nag, nag, nag. She
would talk my ear off if she could.
Complaining that Mrs. Wilson next door got a
new this or that. My budget, be it rather
prosperous, can't take that type of abuse.
We have got to think of our future."
Montigue lights his pipe while Harvey is
speaking. He takes a few puffs and blows a
few smoke rings. After a little silence, he
assumes a thoughtful position. "Have you
ever tried beating her? I mean really
letting her have it. Just going all out and
hitting her? No? Well I have found it works
very well on horses-"
"Horses?! My God man, you must be out of
your mind!"
"Indeed . Now, if you can just keep
still for just a while, you may learn
something. Now where was I? Horses? Yes.
If you must learn one thing, remember what
Rudyard Kipling said. He said the four most
important things in life are 'women and
horses and power and war' and don't you
forget that. Ahh, yes ... It's all too
true, I remember my service in the Majesty's
Royal Forces, stationed in India, I was.
There was a heathen, uncultured, riotous mass
of colonists we had to protect from the
conservative la.nd conscious natives, or was
it the other way around, what? Anyway I led
my jolly brigade down for war with the
Indians, wonderful fighters they are. They
only had a thousand paltry warriors to our
valiant one hundred. Yes, it was an
incredible fight. They would rush at us with
swords and bows and we would aim and fire ,
from behind wooden barricades and watch as
15
entire masses would fall. Yes, we were the
best war-machine of the time; 'Glory in the
name of Britain!' (from King George III), was
our cry. When the battle's outcome looked
inevitable, we would rise up and retreat to
safer grounds, as they surged over the walls.
I would yell, 'Press where you see my white
plume shine amidst the ranks of war!' (from
the immortal Baron Macauly). I would watch
my men fight gallantly until none of them
were left. But, indeed, I fought until the
bitter end when they finally tore me from the
hill. It was not a pretty sight looking on
the fallen, 'horribly stuffed with epitaphs
of war.' That's from Shakespeare boy. Do
you read a lot?"
"Well, let me tell you about my safari,
in the name of Britain (of course), in
Africa. We were to bring these saintly
missionaries into the jungle where they could
teach the natives Godly things. Well, I
think they learned extremely fast from
reading the Bible . One of em' even quoted
the Bible speaking in perfect broken English.
He smiles and winks to me preaching 'The lord
is a man of war' to the others. Lo and
behold, the entire native tribe is singing,
'Onward Christian Soldiers' while we make a
stand against them on our horses. Horses?
No, no. Elephants. Remarkable creatures,
stand ten to twelve feet high, hundreds of
pounds, with this incredible snout. Trunk?
Yes that's what they called it, I don't know
why, it doesn't hold anything."
"Uncle Montigue, pray tell where is your
mad invention driving to? You've been
talking about wars and strange creatures that
probably don't even exist. What does this
have to do with my problems of home?"
"Be a jolly good chap and pipe down. I
think you must learn patience, too. Have you
no sense of what it's like to stare death in
16
the face and laugh? I have, upon many a time
I have. Grim though it be. I can laugh to
this day. Like the time in the West Indies,
we had been sailing so long that this disease
overtook us when we had landed. Scurvy they
called it, but death to some all the same.
It was horrible and I won't go into details
about how the flesh peeled and oozed from
red-purplish sores. Boy, have you ever gone
hungry? I have. In a Turkish prison, they
threw me in a cell and sealed it off to let
me die. If it weren't for my courageous men
who stormed the fort looking for their
dauntless leader who was abducted in the
night by the heathen, I wouldn't be here
today.
"Soon after that, I was again upon the
open sea, off for Africa once again, the
southernmost part. As the Royal Court had
ordered, we were to put the natives in their
place. We fought hand to hand with the
worms, looked them in the eye, watched them
lose color and run to the hills. We helped
the colonists and we were off again.
"Ai, son, if you are a God-fearing man,
then you have nothing to fear from any man
because once you have faced death, everything
else will seem paltry next to it. Face up to
what you have to do. Don't be a coward,
people can sense it and won't respect you or
your family otherwise. Especially your wife.
My wife, God rest her soul, was wonderful. A
fine marriage. She got careleis a few times
when I was away to war; thought I was dead
she did! She'd be this close to marriage
again but I returned with medals of honor and
glory and caught her . . . I showed her a
thing or two. I put her in her place right
quick, I did. When I was through, she
wouldn't dream of doing anything except her
duties to the house." He relights his pipe,
long since out, stands and looks out the
17
window. "Courage my boy courage, and with it
comes honor and glory. What more can a real
man ask for?"
"I see. I see what you are driving at
Yes I do." Harvey also rises and thanks
his uncle, a wealth of information from his
past experiences. "Stand up and be a man .•.
Is that what you are saying to me? To fight
for what I believe in? Against other
people?"
"Ai, boy, exactly!" Montigue points his
pipe at Harvey, "Thomas Hardy also said that
'war makes rattling good history, but peace
is a boring book'. Look around you, man,
especially at Germany's sudden growth in
weapons." He winks to him as he blows out
some smoke, "Looks like your generation's
book will be interestin'."
''Well then, I'll be back to see you again
soon, I guess. You take care now." Harvey
closes the door to leave, his lunch break is
almost up and he has to be back to the court
in Parliament. Montigue's profound comments
stick in his mind as he is leaving the house.
"It can't hurt that much if I try," he says
to himself.
David Smith
18
Fort At The End Of The Path
Down by the lake there is a hole in the
woods best lit in the magical light of Saturday
mornings: children's light, bright outside the
dens of slumbering parents too-coupled to break
ahd pour cereal.
A two-foot lawn between pine and birch
bridged lowly by sneaker-tromped-ferns marks .a
passageway made d~rk by the light it absorbs.
Further down-trail is the crock-rock where the
marsh starts, and the half-snapped tree whose
broken limbs form the head of a dragon that
lived one night when the moon fell into its eye.
Knolls of grass, like stunted spires in the
mire, offer passage, though, like the heads of
the mainly-buried, they can't be stepped on long
without shifting, worsening under the
embarrassment of such rotted cores ievealed, so
steps are posed quickly.
The trail climbs and clouds with brush.
There, the twigs of the barbed-iron-weed comb
the hair of bears as they pass at night and
relay woolly signs of the way afresh before each
day. (Because bears can't keep up a circular
chase in orbit of a fat trunk or granite hunk,
abundant-agility is one's security--_.-never has
a rabbit piteously joined the ranks of hollowed
possums and porcupines on the trail's edge~)
Skirting the lowly-flatland-summit leads to
an out-post of human-handed creation, comprised
on such principles as the square, vantage ·
points, and fields of fire. A fort founded
around a natural ditch deemed to be defended.
21
Walls rose from the million stooping
gestures of stick collectors to stand high and
thick, levelled just under the chin of the
shortest looker-outer. It grew, gal~anized from
the instinctive tendencies of young cousins in
the woods to withstand all the ghouls that form
youthful fears. .
I returned to the lake this year and for
once the ferns stood erect in the trail, a more
re~ilient · strain than before. The hole still
stood between ·a fatter pine and fatter birch,
still gaped and greedily drunk in the light to
render it dull. Where the ground inhaled and
bubbled understep, the green-hair~d skrills
turned underfoot, grotesquely and f9rever
snapped. Acros~ these, mere halfsteps sufficed,
as was the hill mounted with halfstrength,
though the unbroken route, un-cornb-caught with
the hair of bears, was more divined of
re-summoned instinct than steered through. I
knew that n6 d~agon bad breathed ~~t smoke over
the bear-ground anymore---it all grew
untrampled, without the press Df paw or of
Converse All-Star to govern its rise.
And The Fort:
There had been a fierce battle; the walls were
spilled and buttressed mockingly by moss, and
the ruins melted in scattered piles, running in
their moistened currents to fill the hole-core
of our defense. So far gone, that it resisted
the chance to pass in orange and sparky dignity
to join the pyres that marked proud,
earthy-withdrawals historically.
22
How could this slow-slicing, meticulous
blade--cutting with a tic and a toc--have been
forecasted by this fort's founders? Fields of
fire and all considered, how could a fort, like
this fort, be so disfigured, its entire form
irreversibly and shamefully crawling aboard
Charon's creaking raft to drift.
all the Styx?
John Jamieson
23
Woman With A Heavy Heart
Perhaps it is because her lover has
ignored her lately,
I think I see it in her eyes,
quiet desperation building
as men watch her walk past
with a rose colored sheen of desire.
Has he plotted her destruction
in coffee shops and city streets?
Between her shoulder blades
and her heart?
Her youth was nothing more than a muted
shadow passing over her lover's face,
white washed by her conscience
as it tried to free her soul from the
damage done so early on.
I do not feel for her as I once did.
The seasons will rise and fall
without her here, without that weighted
heart that so long ago
forgot how to cry.
She is looking a little wild around the
eyes tonight.
Amy Eads
24
Fog
This puffy whiteness
Swirling and eddying
Around my head, filling my vision
with fantasy and wonder.
Shadows pass before my eyes;
Images that are seen
Only in my mind's eyes.
Stepping through the first form
My wonder climaxes
Sending me on a metaphy~ical voyage
For all eternity within this cloud.
I step back and remember myself,
Watching as the elves and fairies fade away
Chased by the bright yellow orb,
Which signals the start of another day.
Tom Phillips
25
MIRAGE
It's all around you
But you can not see
EVERYWHERE •••
What can it be?
It's people's speech
In your ear
Its true meaning
You can not hear
You see it every day
At home and on the street
You hear it from people
When they gather and greet
Something you can't see
Yet something you can feel
Something you can't recognize
But your heart it can steal
A total mirage
People's masquerade
This is the foundation
In which our feelings are laid
Like a caring lover
With a gentle hand
Her secret others
Where do you stand?
You hear it from friends
A hug or hand shake
Yet how many smiles
Do they just fake?
You meet a great body
At a club or a mall
Finding out later
It's wrong numbers you'll call
26
Smile to the rude
Even though their a pain
Courtesy is policy
Even though it's in vain
A total mirage
Your senses it cheats
For this world runs
On perfect deceits
27
David Smith
Love From Above
There are few words that can impart
The true love I've found
Dwelling within my heart
It's a love that soars when
A hawk takes its flight
There's nothing to compare with Heaven
Lit up on a starry night.
The wonder and splendor of fiery colors
In the autumn hills,
Or the twinkle in a child's eyes
While discovering yet another new
Thrill.
The rush of the wind's blowing
Through my long hair,
A long walk through the woods with its
Flowing streams and the grace of
Bounding deer.
The feel of the power in the
Waves of the ocean,
The hovering of a dragonfly
Suspended in motion . . .
The discovery of a rainbow
Like an arrow piercing a cloud,
The achievements of my children
That make me so proud.
Or to taste of the fruits
In the garden of my love,
The uniting of flesh-so-close
Like the fitting of a glove.
All of these feelings
Set my spirit on the wing,
The soul of an eagle
To my soul it does bring.
28
Linda L. Adam
Caf-€ Absurdite
I exit the bathroom in the rear of the shop
wondering if, and at what sort of volume, the
chess-board-tiled-walls broadcasted my business
there to the shop's customers, who, even then,
would be raising porcelain-like mugs to their
lips; the question, really, was whether or not
their concentration fastened on the subtle
acoustic promptings around them, or found other
head-spun diversions.
At my table: my cooling caf~-au-lait, one
hand in support of my chin as the other crawls
blindly around the saucer's rim. Tables ahead
of me and impossible to ignore, an elderly
woman--early seventies at least--radiates an air
of extreme uneasiness in my direction and makes
no attempt to conceal that I, indeed, am her
subject of nervous uncertainty; a great wrinkle
spanning her entire face shaped by an oddity,
and not by the cruel weathering of the years.
Within blinks her stare dissolves and she
comes to me. With a ratty-nose and a nod she
gestures and says: "L'homme-la, il a mis
quel-que chose dans votre caf~."
"What?" I say, "What time is it?" each word
wrapped in my inbred Mayor of Boston
feigned-concerned-accent. She spoke again in
English this time with Inspector (Caper)
Clouseau conviction: "That man there, he put
something in your coffee."
This "man" appears as a mere torso behind a
frontal-draped-cape of Le Devoir, a cloak of
Montreal's crisp news. I pinky-point, "That
man?" And somewhere between my pinky and our
shared subject and back again she turns fumed,
blurts the nasal-narration of her exit: "Oui"
(pronounced: AH-Way). The man and myself are
now the only customers at this dinner hour.
Threads of steam no longer rise from my
coffee, and the whipped milk on its surface no
longer has its proud quality of a sculpted
29
nipple. "Impossible," I mutter as I return my
chin to my hand and my gaze to the street.
Along the window the sidewalk is sunken, orange­striped
saw-horses mark an open trench. I had
learned earlier from the cashier, in fragments
at the mercy of my capacity for French, that a
man broke through the cement here---probably on
his way home from work. The image lingers and,
with the quality of instantaneous recollection,
the. kind so often spurred by a scent, I recall
the policeman who wore a skunk-styled-stripe on
the back of his uniform, a testimony to the
innate impatience . of pigeons. A passerby, no
less than an indebted friend, used a paper bag
to unfasten the brunt of th~ mess as the other
went on conducting the chaotic-orchestra of cars
on ST. Catherine St., white gloves a-fluttter,
completely unphased.
How NORMAL that flagrant lack of sense had
seemed---bad luck, misfortune • . .---how
·completely normal, almost mundane. I probably
would have never thought of it again, the entire
incident impressing nothing more upon me than
the effect of three consecutive yellow lights
encountered during the climax of a hurry. No,
never again, had my gaze not tripped over the
landscape of one man's ill-fate just outside the
cafe: the sight of the sidewalk, which now
boasts, in .French undoubtedly, the details of
one nearly murderous inhalation; nearly deserved .
revenge, as it must see it, upon the race who'se
been walking on him since the day he was poured.
I look into my coffee. It looks
unhealthier, totally inconsistent with the term
"robust" as it was advertised on the menu; all
its real mass, the spices and caffeine,
everything more than empty-rain, had given up
swirling at their million different heights, and
sunk: skinny coffee with a big bottom. I stare
deeper and notice a black, bug-leg-crooked
30
line, a crack-at-a-glance. (The result,
perhaps, of a cement-dissolving-germ carried
into the kitchen off the corrupted sidewalk
outside, where it surely thrived.) I sighed,
the coffee rippled, the flat foam patch jiggled
a bit and the black line blew onto the saucer
lip and balanced there. A hair; a long lash, or
rear-of-the-hand, pubic-resembling single lock.
And the man with the paper: still the same
headlines as before looked out onto the vacant
assembly of tables and chairs, not a single
crinkling page had been flipped and recreased.
(Maybe the words were small and ambiguous,
eye-tarring, but I attributed his lack of
progress to ..• distractedness.)
Without the warning of a foot-slide or
mournful sigh ·for the state of the world as seen
through~ Devoir, he glances at me, black eyes
beneath a fur-mask of a beard; impatient,
perhaps waiting for the long article before him
to "get under way"; in my head though, rang the
words "SIP ALREADY!" My glance falls from his
and dwells on his hands. Only faint patches of
relative smmoothness shown through to suggest
the presence of flesh, mostly though there was
hair---lakes of hair supplied from the woolly
rivers that must have sprung from a higher place
running over-neck, palm-ward and crack-ward, all
calling the beard their ultimate source. And it
was suddenly my belief that he had lost "a
drop"---ah, badluck, misfortune ... ---while
administering a dose of some abject and horrible
powder or sauce, which I can only thank God had
been witnessed by the presence of anyone at all;
and imagine if there had been only he and I at
this dinner-hour. What would be my condition
upon having tasted something vile in my first
sip, suddenly swooning to the grotesque
accompaniment of His laughter: hysterics turned,
perhaps, eulogical?
31
I lay my money down and left, gulping at the
air outside, reminding myself to mind the pit.
The nearest saw-horse was overturned and the wet
road met the night air with the perfection of a
transparent booby-trap. I walked clear to the
far side of the street before passing, half
anticipating the hiss of a falling piano or
anvil---for reason, the world was an unsafe
place; painful, as one is shown each day how
impossible is the prospect of anticipation.
John Jamieson
32
Fall In Massachusetts
The best time of year
only happens once a year.
It's the time that fills me full of
cheer;
it's the only time for me.
When the wind is a-howlin'
an' the trees are a-rattlin',
the surf starts a-crashin',
and the birds in the sky
let out their cry.
At this time of year
with a flap of their wings
The birds are gone beside Summer's
wimgs, leaving the scene
with wintery dreams.
The leaves in the trees
are a-blowin' to an' fro,
announcing their dismay
at another season's decay.
The wind-swept-surf
crashes and roars
conveying its displeasure t'wards
another summer's close.
These are the sounds
I like to hear,
for they are tellin' me
that my season's near.
Fall in Massachusetts
is the best time of year,
and though it only comes once a year
it's always enough for me.
Tom Phillips
33
--- . ··--.. ...... .. ~~~-,-_:._.~.;...-:-.. . ·: ...... ~:;:=--:::---...___ ____
·-··- ......... " . - -:-­
Gr amps
The words echoed in my head.
The tears began to roll down my cheeks.
". • • Your grandfather is dead."
Hands stuffed deep into pockets,
Wondering how my heart still beat.
Blood pounding at my eye-sockets
Afraid to look into that depthless pit
Called six-feet-down.
Looking at old photographs,
Remembering the times so dear,
Grinning at how he held his staff,
In this I still feel his presence near.
Jeff Duguay
35
While Walking Through a Graveyard
While walking through a graveyard
One quiet and drunken eve,
I chanced upon a gravestone:
Here Lies Tom Phillips
And He's Bloody Well Annoyed.
I thought to myself:
So would I be
If I was six feet down
And nowheres else to go.
Tom Phillips
36
Various Haiku
Haiku #1
Follow the birdsong
Through forests of pine and birch
Waiting for winter
Haiku #2
Staring through the tall trees
Silhouetted by the sky
On my face, moonshine
Haiku #3
Bodies together
Sharing warmth on a wet night
Amongst the pine trees
Lars Knakkergaard
37
Cold
Frost hung cold on the forest trees,
Ice froze on the limbs in the breeze.
Smoke in the air from a deer's breath
Who silently meandered awhile then left.
Grey was the sky as it started to snow,
A squirrel stood still, then jumped
To-and-fro.
Darkness settled in on the forest below
So the sun knew it was time for him to
go.
Up in a tree a chicadee fluttered his
Wings for warmth. Blackness enveloped
The swamp. In the wilderness far from
Man's eye the day was growing old
And all of nature said that it was
cold.
David B. Thurston
38
•
What Use Are The Understandings That Simultaneously
Compose My Wisdom And Extinction?
The noose lays round my neck
A collar whose knotty tag suggests: "Reformed"-­Purely
confident in its conviction of past tense.
My confounded-kin of formulas, my geometric inventions
Which, even now, invade my thoughts in intricate
Computation describing (I.) the
Constriction of a circle:
1/2 pi squared to the last powerful click of a
Broken-bony-link.
The result of a hempy immovable object
Interacting with the stem
Of an unresolved and purpling countenance,
W~aker, and so subdued.
Describing (II.) the consequences of arrested motion:
The mass of a falling object times the
Seconds of flight divided by the
Tautness of the cord,
Beginning with a jerk and finishing with a bow-string
Link between gallows and flinchless, gory pendulum,
Who, if allowed, could encode these
Residual swayings into numbers.
I studied Latin with monastic vigor,
Endless terms of classification and
Philosophy, hence I deem my last
Utterance verbal parody:
"Cognito Morto Sum" (I think--thought-­Therefore,
I--am no more--was.)
39
The Millian (Mills) Laws:
The philosophy of utility.
The million learnings
All infinitely useless.
From my skull flooded by the essence of
An excessive education I birthed
Conclusions to be opposed by brawn,
Uncoded my numerical truths such that
Printers could arrange their meanings
By the letter, taint--it is said--the literate masses
In inky efficient doses
And earn me death.
Hegemonious above the proofs is the
And abandons existence, but in my
Religion there is only the flesh:
A cloak perhaps of something spirited
But unquestionably terminable---and so I
Anticipate the (III.) final formula
Amidst conclusive momentum:
The intricacies of movement driven by
Sparky, reasonable, impulse
Which bridges the indefinite abyss from
Man to beast, digit to finger,
With all its collective discovery
Inevitably divided by zero,
Ending in nothing.
40
John Jamieson
To Night
Please, gentle night
rock me to sleep
Though I am weary from
the day's events
My mental curiousity
of darkness
Keeps me to watch the sun rise
JoAnna GreenWood
41

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EDITORIAL BOARD
Mr. Dana Wilde - Faculty Advisor
John Jamieson - Editor~in-Chief
Joanna Greenwood ·
Tom Phillips ·
Gina Sawyer
Kristi DeRoche
The Editorial board would like to voice its
sincere appreciation for the direction, and
logistical support of Dana Wilde, to the staff
of the Library and L.R.C. for their generousity,
· pat{ence, and technical assistance, as well as
to all the authors and artists who found time in
their socio-academic regimin to ventilate their
creativity through this issue; finally, we would
like to thank The Print Shop, Old Town, Maine,
and the funds provided by Unity College for .
making this publication possible.
@ 1990 The students of Unity College, Unity
Maine. Published: Dec. 1990 by The Print Shop;
350 copies.
North Winds
"Fall '90"
CONTENTS
Untitled #1-=-Joanna Greenwood. • ••.•• 6
After The Storm-=-Lori Chapdelaine ......• 7
Leave me 0 lust-=-Tom Just. • • . • . • 8
The Feeling of Wilderness-=-Robert M. Seely •• 10
Young Warrior-=-James Watkins. • • • • • • 12
Elements of A Time Gone By-=-David Smith .•• 14
Headlights and Rain-=-Dawn Dixon ......• 20
End of The Path-=-J. Jamieson. • • • 21
Woman With A Heavy Heart-=-Amy Eads. • . • . 24
Fog-=-Tom Phillips .•••••.••.•••• 25
Mirage-=-David Smith .••••..••••.• 26
Love From Above-=-Linda Adams. • . . . • ... 28
Cafe Absurdite-=-J. Jamieson. • 29
Fall In Mass.-=-Tom phillips •....•..• 33
Gramps-=-Jef f Duguay. • • • • • • • . • .' • . 35
While Walking in A Graveyard-=-Tom Phillips .. 36
Various Haiku-=-Lars knakkergaard ......• 37
Cold-=-David B. Thurston .••.....••. 38
What Use Are My Understandings-=-J. Jamieson. 39
To Night-=-Joanna Greenwood •.•.....•• 41
Drawings
"Duck Landing"-=-Kim Kuntz .•.• 19
"Dangerous Momentum"-=-Anna Hagigeorgiou •.. 9
"Turkish Portrait"-=-Tess Fairbanks ... 34
"The Mighty Pen"-=-Thurston Graham ..••. Cover
3
Editor's Note
There are few things these days that have
sufficient integrity to survive in a popular
light without something shining alongside them,
an accompanying gimmick forged, perhaps, in neon
to act as a magnet for our attention and, as
they would have it, our affection. Oftentimes
the thing in its true and examined form seems
less than it did "as advertised". In lieu of
the frequency of this occurence we grow to
accept this, train our expectations to avoid
being repeatedly "had", and soon after, we erect
a shield of desensitization; an armor that only
more massive lettering, other invented electric
hues, and greater and greater volumes can
penetrate.
Voices that blare, "Mmmmmm--wow!", and, "But
wait .. . before you act! ... ", invade us
over every channel and fashion of media;
even our mail boxes, the things that we as
children were taught were sacred and somehow
transcended vandalism, are now crammed with
colorful and apparently exciting packets sent
personally to us, the residents.
In Chicago, a hot-dog stand anchors a sign
from the force responsible for the euphimism of
the city which reads: "Chicago's Most Fabulous
Hot Dogs", the narrator to the latest movie
preview--of which they've just shown us the
introduction, climax, and resolution--finishes
in a zealous and reverberating imperative: "See
it Now!" From wieners to theater, few things
are regarded with enough faith to merely stand
alone and ungarnished with hype.
Sunsets and rocky crags along isolated
shores, however, have the power to move an
onlooker with a conviction no Cadillac salesman,
even in a Santa-suit, could ever match; I doubt
if there's anyone who's ever climbed a hill in
search of an unshrouded sunset, who's felt that
the scramble was not worth the spectacle, or the
rare sensation of natural perfection it excites
in us. In this sense, poetry--art in
general--is the same way.
The stories and poems of this semester's
magazine, whether edified on foundations of
stanzas or free verse, stand fast, and mine our
passions to surprising depths and bring
tremendous yields. The following is quite naked
by today's standards. All of its glory, jazz
and flash exists on the inside nearer to one's
heart and mind, perforates our desensitized
mantles with an array of aural-dynamic, honed
and adgile words, eventually nesting noticeably
in our cores.
John Jamieson
5
Untitled I
Though the ground has turned to ice
And the wind has grown cold, my heart
Remains warm and
Kindly inside of me;
My thoughts are cleansed and
Purified as I stroll through the
Beckoning wood.
The trees are illuminated by the powder
Upon which the sun radiates
Its glowing beams.
Limbs break and fall from the heavy
Burden laid on them,
Streams suffocate to move
Along the icy flow;
But I am here inside this beautiful
World of white,
Every day it beckons me to come forth
And I do.
JoAnna Greenwood
6
The Feeling Of Wilderness
The sound or lack thereof
Filled the space of a couple hundred feet above
As I walked in awe of nature's glorious feats.
A canyon filled with nothing;
Loose pumice rock walls
Where ash and dust fall.
A feeling off the road I seek,
A feeling off the road I seek.
Down I walk upon a waterfall,
Dry as a bone.
Deeper into the recesses
And the caves of the unknown.
Water here, water there, trickling under our feet
Playing hide and seek,
Till its confluence with the rushing creek.
A feeling off the road I seek,
A feeling off the road I seek.
The water here is very bold
Cutting canyons many years and centuries old,
Forming boundaries that we were told were limitless
Being watched by an audience of trees and flowers,
Grasses and the pinnacles that tower,
Pumice and rock and even a Red-tailed hawk
On a flight in the canyon he commands.
A stream of water running smooth and sleek
Through obstacles nature demands.
Sticks and stumps and logs and things
That winter often brings,
Forming torrents and clashes and shallow splashes
Where frolicking animals play.
10
A feeling off the roa~ I seek,
A feeling off the road I seek.
Scaling its walls,
And playing in its halls
That erosion forms on its way to the ocean;
An exit we found,
Way up on high ground.
Know one knows why but off we went
Out of this canyon, a good day spent
Upon this creek of majesty.
While climbing uo the canyon wall,
I suddenly had a wondrous thought,
It was a feeling off the road I sought,
It was a feeling that I found a lot.
Robert M. Seely
11
Young Warrior
You're nineteen and never scored
Now they're gonna send you off to war
Give you a gun
Teach you to kill
Come on boy it's a lot of fun
Just turn off your emotions and point
Your gun
Murder is legal
Murder is right
When it's a war everything is alright
Kill boy kill
Do what you're told
Kill boy Kill
Don't forget to reload
Who is the enemy
What is his name
Don't you know he's just another player
In the game
Shoot him dead
Shoot him down
Listen for his guttural sound
In nineteen years with
Flame-of-experience barely lit
How can they expect you to handle it
You'll never be free from the things
You've seen
Kill boy kill
What you waitin' for
Kill boy kill
Don't you love war
12
The pain and screams of your dying
Friends
Their blood and guts stain the land
What does it matter
You've made it through
As quickly as they've snatched you
They've dispatched you
Thrown you to the lions
Who don't understand
James Watkins
13
Elements of a Time Gone By
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in" a robust voice calls out.
"Ahh, yes ••. Oh thank you very much
for letting me in" Harvey says to the
caretaker of the house.
"Oohh, t'was not a problem at all. I
just be doin' me job. If ye be needin' me,
just press the buzzer, and I'll come around."
Harvey is left with his Uncle Prescot, who is
engrossed in a chess game he is playing
against himself. Relics, trophies, pictures,
and war paraphernalia line the walls of the
room.
"Sir Walter Prescot the III, I presume?"
jests Harvey.
"Indeed, but just call me Montigue" he
replies. "But please, I am in the middle of
an intense chess game."
"But uncle, none of the pieces have been
moved."
"Shh!" He brings his finger in front of
his mouth. A flushed look of anger rushes
across his face, enhancing the brown
mustache. "Boy, the greatest chess players
of the world take hours if not days to decide
their moves, because the first strike, I mean
move, is the most critical. The outcome of
the campaign, no ... game, depends upon the
split second decision making ability of the,
ahh ... player. So you should never leap
to conclusions before the facts are known!"
"Uncle Montigue ... you don't even know
how to play chess."
"That's beside the point, boy. You
should never let your enemy think you can't
do something. Keep'em in the dark as some
might say. A Mr. Thomas Hardy once said that
'Each man is only at his post when under
fire.' Look here, boy, at this board, notice
every figure is at its station. Therefore,
lL}
this is the most important part of the game.
I remember a time--"
"Uncle, I am so sorry to interrupt you,
but I came to ask you for advice. My wife,
she's been picking at me constantly,
especially about money. Nag, nag, nag. She
would talk my ear off if she could.
Complaining that Mrs. Wilson next door got a
new this or that. My budget, be it rather
prosperous, can't take that type of abuse.
We have got to think of our future."
Montigue lights his pipe while Harvey is
speaking. He takes a few puffs and blows a
few smoke rings. After a little silence, he
assumes a thoughtful position. "Have you
ever tried beating her? I mean really
letting her have it. Just going all out and
hitting her? No? Well I have found it works
very well on horses-"
"Horses?! My God man, you must be out of
your mind!"
"Indeed . Now, if you can just keep
still for just a while, you may learn
something. Now where was I? Horses? Yes.
If you must learn one thing, remember what
Rudyard Kipling said. He said the four most
important things in life are 'women and
horses and power and war' and don't you
forget that. Ahh, yes ... It's all too
true, I remember my service in the Majesty's
Royal Forces, stationed in India, I was.
There was a heathen, uncultured, riotous mass
of colonists we had to protect from the
conservative la.nd conscious natives, or was
it the other way around, what? Anyway I led
my jolly brigade down for war with the
Indians, wonderful fighters they are. They
only had a thousand paltry warriors to our
valiant one hundred. Yes, it was an
incredible fight. They would rush at us with
swords and bows and we would aim and fire ,
from behind wooden barricades and watch as
15
entire masses would fall. Yes, we were the
best war-machine of the time; 'Glory in the
name of Britain!' (from King George III), was
our cry. When the battle's outcome looked
inevitable, we would rise up and retreat to
safer grounds, as they surged over the walls.
I would yell, 'Press where you see my white
plume shine amidst the ranks of war!' (from
the immortal Baron Macauly). I would watch
my men fight gallantly until none of them
were left. But, indeed, I fought until the
bitter end when they finally tore me from the
hill. It was not a pretty sight looking on
the fallen, 'horribly stuffed with epitaphs
of war.' That's from Shakespeare boy. Do
you read a lot?"
"Well, let me tell you about my safari,
in the name of Britain (of course), in
Africa. We were to bring these saintly
missionaries into the jungle where they could
teach the natives Godly things. Well, I
think they learned extremely fast from
reading the Bible . One of em' even quoted
the Bible speaking in perfect broken English.
He smiles and winks to me preaching 'The lord
is a man of war' to the others. Lo and
behold, the entire native tribe is singing,
'Onward Christian Soldiers' while we make a
stand against them on our horses. Horses?
No, no. Elephants. Remarkable creatures,
stand ten to twelve feet high, hundreds of
pounds, with this incredible snout. Trunk?
Yes that's what they called it, I don't know
why, it doesn't hold anything."
"Uncle Montigue, pray tell where is your
mad invention driving to? You've been
talking about wars and strange creatures that
probably don't even exist. What does this
have to do with my problems of home?"
"Be a jolly good chap and pipe down. I
think you must learn patience, too. Have you
no sense of what it's like to stare death in
16
the face and laugh? I have, upon many a time
I have. Grim though it be. I can laugh to
this day. Like the time in the West Indies,
we had been sailing so long that this disease
overtook us when we had landed. Scurvy they
called it, but death to some all the same.
It was horrible and I won't go into details
about how the flesh peeled and oozed from
red-purplish sores. Boy, have you ever gone
hungry? I have. In a Turkish prison, they
threw me in a cell and sealed it off to let
me die. If it weren't for my courageous men
who stormed the fort looking for their
dauntless leader who was abducted in the
night by the heathen, I wouldn't be here
today.
"Soon after that, I was again upon the
open sea, off for Africa once again, the
southernmost part. As the Royal Court had
ordered, we were to put the natives in their
place. We fought hand to hand with the
worms, looked them in the eye, watched them
lose color and run to the hills. We helped
the colonists and we were off again.
"Ai, son, if you are a God-fearing man,
then you have nothing to fear from any man
because once you have faced death, everything
else will seem paltry next to it. Face up to
what you have to do. Don't be a coward,
people can sense it and won't respect you or
your family otherwise. Especially your wife.
My wife, God rest her soul, was wonderful. A
fine marriage. She got careleis a few times
when I was away to war; thought I was dead
she did! She'd be this close to marriage
again but I returned with medals of honor and
glory and caught her . . . I showed her a
thing or two. I put her in her place right
quick, I did. When I was through, she
wouldn't dream of doing anything except her
duties to the house." He relights his pipe,
long since out, stands and looks out the
17
window. "Courage my boy courage, and with it
comes honor and glory. What more can a real
man ask for?"
"I see. I see what you are driving at
Yes I do." Harvey also rises and thanks
his uncle, a wealth of information from his
past experiences. "Stand up and be a man .•.
Is that what you are saying to me? To fight
for what I believe in? Against other
people?"
"Ai, boy, exactly!" Montigue points his
pipe at Harvey, "Thomas Hardy also said that
'war makes rattling good history, but peace
is a boring book'. Look around you, man,
especially at Germany's sudden growth in
weapons." He winks to him as he blows out
some smoke, "Looks like your generation's
book will be interestin'."
''Well then, I'll be back to see you again
soon, I guess. You take care now." Harvey
closes the door to leave, his lunch break is
almost up and he has to be back to the court
in Parliament. Montigue's profound comments
stick in his mind as he is leaving the house.
"It can't hurt that much if I try" he says
to himself.
David Smith
18
Fort At The End Of The Path
Down by the lake there is a hole in the
woods best lit in the magical light of Saturday
mornings: children's light, bright outside the
dens of slumbering parents too-coupled to break
ahd pour cereal.
A two-foot lawn between pine and birch
bridged lowly by sneaker-tromped-ferns marks .a
passageway made d~rk by the light it absorbs.
Further down-trail is the crock-rock where the
marsh starts, and the half-snapped tree whose
broken limbs form the head of a dragon that
lived one night when the moon fell into its eye.
Knolls of grass, like stunted spires in the
mire, offer passage, though, like the heads of
the mainly-buried, they can't be stepped on long
without shifting, worsening under the
embarrassment of such rotted cores ievealed, so
steps are posed quickly.
The trail climbs and clouds with brush.
There, the twigs of the barbed-iron-weed comb
the hair of bears as they pass at night and
relay woolly signs of the way afresh before each
day. (Because bears can't keep up a circular
chase in orbit of a fat trunk or granite hunk,
abundant-agility is one's security--_.-never has
a rabbit piteously joined the ranks of hollowed
possums and porcupines on the trail's edge~)
Skirting the lowly-flatland-summit leads to
an out-post of human-handed creation, comprised
on such principles as the square, vantage ·
points, and fields of fire. A fort founded
around a natural ditch deemed to be defended.
21
Walls rose from the million stooping
gestures of stick collectors to stand high and
thick, levelled just under the chin of the
shortest looker-outer. It grew, gal~anized from
the instinctive tendencies of young cousins in
the woods to withstand all the ghouls that form
youthful fears. .
I returned to the lake this year and for
once the ferns stood erect in the trail, a more
re~ilient · strain than before. The hole still
stood between ·a fatter pine and fatter birch,
still gaped and greedily drunk in the light to
render it dull. Where the ground inhaled and
bubbled understep, the green-hair~d skrills
turned underfoot, grotesquely and f9rever
snapped. Acros~ these, mere halfsteps sufficed,
as was the hill mounted with halfstrength,
though the unbroken route, un-cornb-caught with
the hair of bears, was more divined of
re-summoned instinct than steered through. I
knew that n6 d~agon bad breathed ~~t smoke over
the bear-ground anymore---it all grew
untrampled, without the press Df paw or of
Converse All-Star to govern its rise.
And The Fort:
There had been a fierce battle; the walls were
spilled and buttressed mockingly by moss, and
the ruins melted in scattered piles, running in
their moistened currents to fill the hole-core
of our defense. So far gone, that it resisted
the chance to pass in orange and sparky dignity
to join the pyres that marked proud,
earthy-withdrawals historically.
22
How could this slow-slicing, meticulous
blade--cutting with a tic and a toc--have been
forecasted by this fort's founders? Fields of
fire and all considered, how could a fort, like
this fort, be so disfigured, its entire form
irreversibly and shamefully crawling aboard
Charon's creaking raft to drift.
all the Styx?
John Jamieson
23
Woman With A Heavy Heart
Perhaps it is because her lover has
ignored her lately,
I think I see it in her eyes,
quiet desperation building
as men watch her walk past
with a rose colored sheen of desire.
Has he plotted her destruction
in coffee shops and city streets?
Between her shoulder blades
and her heart?
Her youth was nothing more than a muted
shadow passing over her lover's face,
white washed by her conscience
as it tried to free her soul from the
damage done so early on.
I do not feel for her as I once did.
The seasons will rise and fall
without her here, without that weighted
heart that so long ago
forgot how to cry.
She is looking a little wild around the
eyes tonight.
Amy Eads
24
Fog
This puffy whiteness
Swirling and eddying
Around my head, filling my vision
with fantasy and wonder.
Shadows pass before my eyes;
Images that are seen
Only in my mind's eyes.
Stepping through the first form
My wonder climaxes
Sending me on a metaphy~ical voyage
For all eternity within this cloud.
I step back and remember myself,
Watching as the elves and fairies fade away
Chased by the bright yellow orb,
Which signals the start of another day.
Tom Phillips
25
MIRAGE
It's all around you
But you can not see
EVERYWHERE •••
What can it be?
It's people's speech
In your ear
Its true meaning
You can not hear
You see it every day
At home and on the street
You hear it from people
When they gather and greet
Something you can't see
Yet something you can feel
Something you can't recognize
But your heart it can steal
A total mirage
People's masquerade
This is the foundation
In which our feelings are laid
Like a caring lover
With a gentle hand
Her secret others
Where do you stand?
You hear it from friends
A hug or hand shake
Yet how many smiles
Do they just fake?
You meet a great body
At a club or a mall
Finding out later
It's wrong numbers you'll call
26
Smile to the rude
Even though their a pain
Courtesy is policy
Even though it's in vain
A total mirage
Your senses it cheats
For this world runs
On perfect deceits
27
David Smith
Love From Above
There are few words that can impart
The true love I've found
Dwelling within my heart
It's a love that soars when
A hawk takes its flight
There's nothing to compare with Heaven
Lit up on a starry night.
The wonder and splendor of fiery colors
In the autumn hills,
Or the twinkle in a child's eyes
While discovering yet another new
Thrill.
The rush of the wind's blowing
Through my long hair,
A long walk through the woods with its
Flowing streams and the grace of
Bounding deer.
The feel of the power in the
Waves of the ocean,
The hovering of a dragonfly
Suspended in motion . . .
The discovery of a rainbow
Like an arrow piercing a cloud,
The achievements of my children
That make me so proud.
Or to taste of the fruits
In the garden of my love,
The uniting of flesh-so-close
Like the fitting of a glove.
All of these feelings
Set my spirit on the wing,
The soul of an eagle
To my soul it does bring.
28
Linda L. Adam
Caf-€ Absurdite
I exit the bathroom in the rear of the shop
wondering if, and at what sort of volume, the
chess-board-tiled-walls broadcasted my business
there to the shop's customers, who, even then,
would be raising porcelain-like mugs to their
lips; the question, really, was whether or not
their concentration fastened on the subtle
acoustic promptings around them, or found other
head-spun diversions.
At my table: my cooling caf~-au-lait, one
hand in support of my chin as the other crawls
blindly around the saucer's rim. Tables ahead
of me and impossible to ignore, an elderly
woman--early seventies at least--radiates an air
of extreme uneasiness in my direction and makes
no attempt to conceal that I, indeed, am her
subject of nervous uncertainty; a great wrinkle
spanning her entire face shaped by an oddity,
and not by the cruel weathering of the years.
Within blinks her stare dissolves and she
comes to me. With a ratty-nose and a nod she
gestures and says: "L'homme-la, il a mis
quel-que chose dans votre caf~."
"What?" I say, "What time is it?" each word
wrapped in my inbred Mayor of Boston
feigned-concerned-accent. She spoke again in
English this time with Inspector (Caper)
Clouseau conviction: "That man there, he put
something in your coffee."
This "man" appears as a mere torso behind a
frontal-draped-cape of Le Devoir, a cloak of
Montreal's crisp news. I pinky-point, "That
man?" And somewhere between my pinky and our
shared subject and back again she turns fumed,
blurts the nasal-narration of her exit: "Oui"
(pronounced: AH-Way). The man and myself are
now the only customers at this dinner hour.
Threads of steam no longer rise from my
coffee, and the whipped milk on its surface no
longer has its proud quality of a sculpted
29
nipple. "Impossible" I mutter as I return my
chin to my hand and my gaze to the street.
Along the window the sidewalk is sunken, orange­striped
saw-horses mark an open trench. I had
learned earlier from the cashier, in fragments
at the mercy of my capacity for French, that a
man broke through the cement here---probably on
his way home from work. The image lingers and,
with the quality of instantaneous recollection,
the. kind so often spurred by a scent, I recall
the policeman who wore a skunk-styled-stripe on
the back of his uniform, a testimony to the
innate impatience . of pigeons. A passerby, no
less than an indebted friend, used a paper bag
to unfasten the brunt of th~ mess as the other
went on conducting the chaotic-orchestra of cars
on ST. Catherine St., white gloves a-fluttter,
completely unphased.
How NORMAL that flagrant lack of sense had
seemed---bad luck, misfortune • . .---how
·completely normal, almost mundane. I probably
would have never thought of it again, the entire
incident impressing nothing more upon me than
the effect of three consecutive yellow lights
encountered during the climax of a hurry. No,
never again, had my gaze not tripped over the
landscape of one man's ill-fate just outside the
cafe: the sight of the sidewalk, which now
boasts, in .French undoubtedly, the details of
one nearly murderous inhalation; nearly deserved .
revenge, as it must see it, upon the race who'se
been walking on him since the day he was poured.
I look into my coffee. It looks
unhealthier, totally inconsistent with the term
"robust" as it was advertised on the menu; all
its real mass, the spices and caffeine,
everything more than empty-rain, had given up
swirling at their million different heights, and
sunk: skinny coffee with a big bottom. I stare
deeper and notice a black, bug-leg-crooked
30
line, a crack-at-a-glance. (The result,
perhaps, of a cement-dissolving-germ carried
into the kitchen off the corrupted sidewalk
outside, where it surely thrived.) I sighed,
the coffee rippled, the flat foam patch jiggled
a bit and the black line blew onto the saucer
lip and balanced there. A hair; a long lash, or
rear-of-the-hand, pubic-resembling single lock.
And the man with the paper: still the same
headlines as before looked out onto the vacant
assembly of tables and chairs, not a single
crinkling page had been flipped and recreased.
(Maybe the words were small and ambiguous,
eye-tarring, but I attributed his lack of
progress to ..• distractedness.)
Without the warning of a foot-slide or
mournful sigh ·for the state of the world as seen
through~ Devoir, he glances at me, black eyes
beneath a fur-mask of a beard; impatient,
perhaps waiting for the long article before him
to "get under way"; in my head though, rang the
words "SIP ALREADY!" My glance falls from his
and dwells on his hands. Only faint patches of
relative smmoothness shown through to suggest
the presence of flesh, mostly though there was
hair---lakes of hair supplied from the woolly
rivers that must have sprung from a higher place
running over-neck, palm-ward and crack-ward, all
calling the beard their ultimate source. And it
was suddenly my belief that he had lost "a
drop"---ah, badluck, misfortune ... ---while
administering a dose of some abject and horrible
powder or sauce, which I can only thank God had
been witnessed by the presence of anyone at all;
and imagine if there had been only he and I at
this dinner-hour. What would be my condition
upon having tasted something vile in my first
sip, suddenly swooning to the grotesque
accompaniment of His laughter: hysterics turned,
perhaps, eulogical?
31
I lay my money down and left, gulping at the
air outside, reminding myself to mind the pit.
The nearest saw-horse was overturned and the wet
road met the night air with the perfection of a
transparent booby-trap. I walked clear to the
far side of the street before passing, half
anticipating the hiss of a falling piano or
anvil---for reason, the world was an unsafe
place; painful, as one is shown each day how
impossible is the prospect of anticipation.
John Jamieson
32
Fall In Massachusetts
The best time of year
only happens once a year.
It's the time that fills me full of
cheer;
it's the only time for me.
When the wind is a-howlin'
an' the trees are a-rattlin',
the surf starts a-crashin',
and the birds in the sky
let out their cry.
At this time of year
with a flap of their wings
The birds are gone beside Summer's
wimgs, leaving the scene
with wintery dreams.
The leaves in the trees
are a-blowin' to an' fro,
announcing their dismay
at another season's decay.
The wind-swept-surf
crashes and roars
conveying its displeasure t'wards
another summer's close.
These are the sounds
I like to hear,
for they are tellin' me
that my season's near.
Fall in Massachusetts
is the best time of year,
and though it only comes once a year
it's always enough for me.
Tom Phillips
33
--- . ··--.. ...... .. ~~~-,-_:._.~.;...-:-.. . ·: ...... ~:;:=--:::---...___ ____
·-··- ......... " . - -:-­
Gr amps
The words echoed in my head.
The tears began to roll down my cheeks.
". • • Your grandfather is dead."
Hands stuffed deep into pockets,
Wondering how my heart still beat.
Blood pounding at my eye-sockets
Afraid to look into that depthless pit
Called six-feet-down.
Looking at old photographs,
Remembering the times so dear,
Grinning at how he held his staff,
In this I still feel his presence near.
Jeff Duguay
35
While Walking Through a Graveyard
While walking through a graveyard
One quiet and drunken eve,
I chanced upon a gravestone:
Here Lies Tom Phillips
And He's Bloody Well Annoyed.
I thought to myself:
So would I be
If I was six feet down
And nowheres else to go.
Tom Phillips
36
Various Haiku
Haiku #1
Follow the birdsong
Through forests of pine and birch
Waiting for winter
Haiku #2
Staring through the tall trees
Silhouetted by the sky
On my face, moonshine
Haiku #3
Bodies together
Sharing warmth on a wet night
Amongst the pine trees
Lars Knakkergaard
37
Cold
Frost hung cold on the forest trees,
Ice froze on the limbs in the breeze.
Smoke in the air from a deer's breath
Who silently meandered awhile then left.
Grey was the sky as it started to snow,
A squirrel stood still, then jumped
To-and-fro.
Darkness settled in on the forest below
So the sun knew it was time for him to
go.
Up in a tree a chicadee fluttered his
Wings for warmth. Blackness enveloped
The swamp. In the wilderness far from
Man's eye the day was growing old
And all of nature said that it was
cold.
David B. Thurston
38
•
What Use Are The Understandings That Simultaneously
Compose My Wisdom And Extinction?
The noose lays round my neck
A collar whose knotty tag suggests: "Reformed"-­Purely
confident in its conviction of past tense.
My confounded-kin of formulas, my geometric inventions
Which, even now, invade my thoughts in intricate
Computation describing (I.) the
Constriction of a circle:
1/2 pi squared to the last powerful click of a
Broken-bony-link.
The result of a hempy immovable object
Interacting with the stem
Of an unresolved and purpling countenance,
W~aker, and so subdued.
Describing (II.) the consequences of arrested motion:
The mass of a falling object times the
Seconds of flight divided by the
Tautness of the cord,
Beginning with a jerk and finishing with a bow-string
Link between gallows and flinchless, gory pendulum,
Who, if allowed, could encode these
Residual swayings into numbers.
I studied Latin with monastic vigor,
Endless terms of classification and
Philosophy, hence I deem my last
Utterance verbal parody:
"Cognito Morto Sum" (I think--thought-­Therefore,
I--am no more--was.)
39
The Millian (Mills) Laws:
The philosophy of utility.
The million learnings
All infinitely useless.
From my skull flooded by the essence of
An excessive education I birthed
Conclusions to be opposed by brawn,
Uncoded my numerical truths such that
Printers could arrange their meanings
By the letter, taint--it is said--the literate masses
In inky efficient doses
And earn me death.
Hegemonious above the proofs is the
And abandons existence, but in my
Religion there is only the flesh:
A cloak perhaps of something spirited
But unquestionably terminable---and so I
Anticipate the (III.) final formula
Amidst conclusive momentum:
The intricacies of movement driven by
Sparky, reasonable, impulse
Which bridges the indefinite abyss from
Man to beast, digit to finger,
With all its collective discovery
Inevitably divided by zero,
Ending in nothing.
40
John Jamieson
To Night
Please, gentle night
rock me to sleep
Though I am weary from
the day's events
My mental curiousity
of darkness
Keeps me to watch the sun rise
JoAnna GreenWood
41